MasHD Blog

Motorola's Moto 360 is the most popular Android Wear device to date , the watch , designed in a round (flat tire) design made it a instant as rival products went on a squarish design philosophy which didn't appeal well to the masses . Although Android wear is still a bit "small" in comparison , the market is expected to grow as Android Wear is slowly pushed to potential iOS users who are keen to try new hardware . Although Motorola enjoyed success with the 360 , the outdated specs and the somewhat plain design needed some drastic change and So Motorola has unveiled not one , but two Moto 360 smartwatches today Motorola Moto 360 2nd gen  As the name suggests , this is basically the "regular" Moto 360 -stepped up for 2015 .The new watch which is now available in 42mm and 46mm face sizes ,still retains much of the old Motorola DNA from last year -including the flat tire bezel up front . Hardware specs including processor and display information is sti...

Apart from the HTC One M9 , HTC anounced a new VR headset called HTC vive , this unit , which is HTC's gateway to the popular VR headset game is said to feature a built in display with a 90 fps refresh rate along with a video content oriented layout which is probably good if you like to watch HBO in Virtual reality , further details about the headset are still kept secret , but HTC will officially announce more details soon . HTC also unveiled its first Wearable today at its MWC event , the new HTC Grip smart band is a fitness tracker that works on Android devices running 4.3 and above as well as iOS 8 and above if you own a Apple device , the wearable is directly aimed at fitness buffs so it features Military standard MIL STD 810G shock resistant shell that protects components like the 1.8 " 32x160p P-OLED display , 100 mah battery , Bluetooth 4.0 , gyro and accelerometer from drops and immersions in water or dust . Strangely , the wearable does not feature a heart rat...

Huawei has launched 2 wearable s (alongside the Huawei Watch - the company's first android wear device ) at its MWC event in Barcelona . The first device is called the Huawei Talkband B2 - this bluetooth headset is actually listed as a wearable as the earpeice and the mic are located as a detachable part which can be detached from its 15mm leather watchstrap , the device's chassis is made out of metal and it integrates a 6 axis motion sensor and a gyro for step counting and other related fitness  tracking Huawei also launched another wearable called the Talkband N1 , this is a bluetooth connected stereo headset for audiophiles and fitness buffs , the set is water resistant and it features a MEMS audio microphone as well a step counter . Pricing for the two wearables or further details about them are still unknown at the moment , but we will surely update this article once the press releases issue out , in the meantime , check out Huawei's first Android wear watch ...

Battery life is one of the biggest complains found in smartwatches today , although smartwatch owners represent a small minority , the bulk of current watches are limited to a day of usage which is not convenient as wearable device owners require them to run for a longer time if they are to commute with these said devices . Pebble - a small startup company that announced the Pebble watch two years ago was one of the pioneers in the smartwatch field , although their Monochrome E-ink displays are no match for the vibrant 320x320 resolution watches from Android wear and Apple's watch divisions , the humble smartwatch maker provided a estimated 5 - 7 days of battery life on the Pebble watch - making them still a viable option if you want a affordable yet long lasting smartwatch . But like all things , the two year old Pebble watch and the one year old Pebble steel are slowly showing their age , although battery life is impressive , users require new features ,a color display and most i...

Garmin is well known for its excellent navigational  services but now in the age of "smart" everything , the company is slowly shaking its rugged adventurer appeal in order to appeal to those who still want excellent tracking services  but with less 1980's design language , a part of this change comes with Garmins 3 new "smartwatches" which the company unveiled alongside a new Vivofit 2 fittness tracker at CES 2015 . First off , we have the Vivoactive smartwatch , this "sony smartwatch" like Garmin is probably the thinnest watch from the brand and it is also the cheapest . The watch costs $249 and $299 if you opt to have a built in heart late monitor option .The watch allows GPS and Glonass tracking and the ability to install 3rd party apps and watchfaces and widgets from developers and the ability to read smartphone notifications makes it more attractive to younger buyers as they might not care much about the average GPS quality the watch might prov...

Withings is another new startup in the world of fitness wearable and the new Activite Pop watch is their first attempt at launching something for the already complex world of wearables .  The Activite Pop - a $150 fitness tracker / Analog watch is probably one of the least fanciest smart gadgets -but with a 8 month battery life , it is probably the most appealing fittness tracker to date . The watch face is analog ,but there is a small step counter dial on the side of the watch face which shows your step count , the maximum setting of the timer is 10000 , but it can be adjusted once the watch is paired to a Android or iOS smartphone via Bluetooth 4.0  . The watch can send information about how many steps you walked ,and it can track your sleeping patterns and it can be used as a small alarm thanks to its built in vibrator which sends muffled vibrations to your hand ,the watch is also water resistant , and the watch can track your swimming data as well . Overall the Withings ...

Most of you heard about Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola at the start of the year , but the deal was not complete ,so much of that information , and the company's handset stratergy didn't change but now the company is officially owned by Lenovo . The famous Chinese OEM is the latest "Owner" of Motorola after the company was taken over (mostly patents) by Google for $12.9billion back in 2011. The new deal , which costs Lenovo $2.9 Billion , is said to be paid as $660 million in cash and the remainder in 3 years . The new marriage with Lenovo is probably going to profit Motorolas handset business as the company is finally coming out of its past with new best selling devices like the Motorola Moto G and the Moto 360 , Lenovo , a company which has a established brand identity and availability might give a piggyback ride to Motorola in the global market making the company profitable once again ,Lenovo hopes to turn Motorola's profits around in 6 quarters and of c...

 The wearable market - which includes stuff like Smartwatches , smartbands and fitness accessories are gaining a ton of interest and popularity these days ,.Upto now , Microsoft lacked a proper wearable device for its Windows smartphones , Android and Apple devices have tons of fitness wearable s and they have their own smartwatch platforms so it was time Microsoft had one of its own for Lumia devices . Presenting the new Microsoft Band - this cuff like accessory is priced at $199 and it has 10 sensors to collect fitness data .The Band , which works with Lumia devices (mostly) is also said to work with Apple and Android hadsets after you install its app , the sensor data captured by the device includes UV ,heart rate (BPM) and Stress level data along with GPS information thanks to its built in GPS module , the band can work without a phone and due to its integration with cloud data it can act as a independent unit if you are on the go .The band has Cortana , which can take notes...

Apart from his music career , Will.i.am is also works in tech , a few years back ,he was appointed as "Director of Creative innovation" at Intel , and now , he is in charge of his own company which is named as "i.am.+" ,and yesterday  the company along with Will.i.am introduced a smartband called "Puls" (pronounced as pulse) which can make phone calls and do other "smartwatchy" things at the same time . The Puls - which Will emphasized as being a smart cuff rather than a smartwatch or a smartband is said to feature 3G connectivity and this allows the plus to make voice calls , the system will be sold via carriers - At&T in the U.S and O2 in the U.K once it arrives during the holiday s . The Puls is powered by Android and it has 1GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage , the Puls project , which according to i.am. took 35 engineers 2 and a half years to design and build , and over their course , they added 3G antennas ,Wifi , bluetooth ,GP...

IFA unveiled a whole bunch of new Sony devices , the Xperia Z3 ,Z3 compact Z3 tablet compact the Xperia E3 and the Smartwatch 3 were shown off in its full glory .The  smartwatch 3 , which is the first Sony Android wear device is probably a good thing for smartwatch buffs , But , Sony also has another smart wearable for those who don't like a watch , but prefer a fitness band instead .Say hello to the Sony Smartband Talk . The fitness band , which has a 1.4" e-Ink display .The band can answer voice calls via its bult in microphone , and this  , like most other  smartbands has all the essential fitness monitoring equipment onboard . The band is also IP68 certified , so you can forget about it getting a little wet . The band will retail for about $200 which is quite expensive for a device of this caliber. Display -1.4" 288x128 e-Ink display OS - Custom Design - smarband , waterproof IP68 fitness accessory ,26g Connectivity - Bluetooth pairing Processor - ARM...

IFA is going to be big this year , but in order to avoid the rush , many manufacturers release their device early in order to get better media attention , LG is one such company , yesterday , they anunced the LG G3 Stylus smartphone , and today they launched their Second Android wear smartwatch - The LG G Watch R . At first glance , the watch looks a bit like the Moto 360, but unlike the Moto 360 - which is not completly round because of a sensor bezel at the bottom , the G Watch R is complete circular with a number inscribed ring to make it look more "authentic" . The watch , running on Android Wear - which is a build of Android for smartwatches , uses the round format to display notifications and text . The watch is powered by a 1.2Ghz Snapdragon 400 chipset and it has 512MB of RAM and 4GB local storage .The watch has a 410 mAh battery which is probably enough to give the 320x320 Plastic OLED display enough power to run for more than a day.The watch has a acclero...

Android wear was originally demo'ed a few months back , but now the Android based smartwatch platform is finally official . With the Announcement of Android L and its card like UI with its Material design , Android based smartwatches are finally at a level where they can go mass market starting today . The Android wear initiative is lead by LG ,Samsung and Motorola , who have teamed up in creating three different hardware models with Motorola taking things a bit too hard with its round design . The other two devices use the standard cube design but Truth be told  , all three serve the same purpose . The wear connects mostly by Wifi direct  , it can also act via Bluetooth but search and map functions require Wifi . The Wear devices feature a very minimalistic interface , swipe down to mute the device and swipe up to un mute and allow data transfer . The wear devices can show data such as maps and location information which can be entered via Voice search . By swiping to th...

Related - Motorola 360 smartwatch LG G Watch Google has gone official with their new project called Android Wear - the latest alliance brings Android to the still untapped market of smartwatches and wearable technology . Although many companies produced in house Android wearables , the platform was never official nor was it very effective because developer tools were virtually non existent and were proprietary . However with the launch of Android Wear , Google has teamed up with HTC , LG,ASUS ,Motorola and Samsung and some lesser known brands like Fossil to create a totally new platform from scratch .The project will also be supported by big microprocessor companies like Intel,Qualcomm,Broadcomm,Mediatek and imagination who will work to produce even smaller microprocessors for future devices. As for now , the project requires the smartwatch to basically sync notifications from any Android app installed on the paired smartphone . The Google smartwatches will also need to work...

Rumors are circulating that smartphone maker HTC plans to show off a new smartwatch at MWC 2014 in Spain next week. The rumors come from a source that claims to be familiar with HTCs plans. This is tipped to be the first of three HTC wearables in the works. The HTC smartwatch is said to be a prototype based on the Qualcomm Toq. HTC will reportedly be showing the watch off to carriers at the show with no plans to show it to the public at this time. Rumors also suggest that HTC will be developing a watch using the Google Now service. The third wearable is rumored to be an electronic bracelet that plays music. The source of the rumor says that the last two smart wearables may not be displayed at the show. HTC has been struggling to compete on the smartphone market as Samsung and Apple command the lion's share of the market for smartphones and tablets. Samsung has its Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which has seen limited success. Apple has been rumored to be working on its own smartwa...

What if you could dress a wound the way you fix a tire? That's the idea behind Xstat Dressing, an in-development technology that would allow medics to easily dress gunshots or other deep wounds on the battlefield — and it was inspired by the foam used to fix flat tires. "That's what we pictured as the perfect solution: something you could spray in, it would expand, and bleeding stops," former medic and RevMedx co-founder John Steinbaugh told Popular Science. "But we found that blood pressure is so high, blood would wash the foam right out." So instead of foam, Xstat uses small, expandable sponges. The sponges — which are standard medical sponges that have been compressed and coated with a hemostatic agent called chitosan — take just 15 seconds to expand once they're in the wound. They help with clotting and slowing blood flow, while providing enough pressure that no manual pressure is needed. Each sponge is also marked so that it can be seen by an X-ra...

There's no doubt that Google is becoming a full-fledged hardware company, but the latest Google X project is a lot different that tablets and smartphones — the company just announced that it's building a "smart contact lens." However, it's not meant to be a miniaturized version of Glass — it's meant to help diabetes patients keep track of their glucose levels. Inside the lens is a miniaturized wireless chip and glucose monitor that will measure the glucose levels of the wearer's tears. Google's hoping that it'll be a less painful and invasive way to monitor glucose levels than the typical method of pricking a finger and testing blood droplets multiple times a day. Ideally, the sensor would be able to generate a reading once per second, and Google wants it to act as an early warning device for when glucose levels start dropping — the company imagines putting a minuscule LED light in the lens that could indicate levels dropping above or below a s...

PHOTO     Nick Leghorn/Thetruthaboutguns The Colt SWORD (Sniper Weapon& Observer Reconnaissance Devices) Technology Demonstrator connects a variety of COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) and MOTS (Military Off-The-Shelf) components together into a deployable package. The system is hard to describe in a single sentence. Colt describe it as “a Small Arms Fire Control System based upon Colt Canada’s Patented Small Arms Network Power Data System”. It is probably best described as a local area wireless network of sensors, communications, power systems and video feeds that can receive and transmit data to/from a wider area military or government networks if required. The heart of the system is a 3G wireless base station. The base station is a fully integrated battery powered system that can be connected to external systems via. satellite modems if required. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the base station, just imagine a green rectangular box about 12″x12″x4″ with tw...

ZTE is set to grab some serious attention this year at CES, announcing five new Android phones and the company’s very first smartwatch – the ZTE BlueWatch. The announcement from ZTE is more of a tease for what’s to come at CES, but we were given a few details regarding the features that ZTE’s new devices will offer. Grand S2 ZTE Grand S II Listed as ZTE’s latest high-end Android phone, the ZTE Grand S II is the first device to offer ZTE’s very own voice control technology, enabling voice recognition unlocking and “voice-to-phone photography.” ZTE did note that the grand S II will feature triple-MIC noise reduction for improved voice calling, but they failed to mention the size of the display and processor. Nubia 5S mini ZTE nubia 5S and nubia 5S mini Both devices come with “screaming-fast” quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processors and “professional-grade” camera hardware. The ZTE nubia 5S is highlighted with a 5-inch Sharp 1080p FHD display, 13 megapixel camera with ...

Back in the dark days of March 2012, we told you about Nokia's patent application for a removable ferromagnetic ink tattoo that would send you haptic feedback whenever your phone receives a call. Different callers could be tied to different vibration patterns so that you could tell who is calling without having to look at your phone. Now, Motorola has received a patent for a similar, but functionally different idea. Motorola's idea is to place a skin tattoo sticker on your neck to be used as a microphone, sending signals to your Motorola Moto X or the latest version of the Motorola DROID. The microphone would be able to send a clearer sound to your handset as it would eliminate background noise. The tattoo would come with its own transceiver, antenna, microphone and signal processor. For some reason not explained, the tattoo would also come with a screen even though the placement of the sticker would preclude you from looking at it. The Moto sticker tattoo will also have a po...

So far, Google’s been fine-tuning Glass and getting ready for the innovative headset’s launch with the help of some early adopters. While those users still have to buy their own (very expensive) Glass hardware, it’s nonetheless a pretty limited program, making participation a coveted position. Yesterday, the company announced plans to greatly expand the scope of this testing, inviting current users to offer up to three friends the chance to get involved with Glass for themselves. While doing so, it also revealed that all these testers will have the chance to swap out their existing Glass units for a new design later this year. So, just what’s changing? All told, the tweaks seem pretty minimal. That’s supposed to be this new hardware up above, and comparing it with existing photos of Glass, we’re hard-pressed to spot any big changes. Google describes its efforts with this design as making Glass more compatible with existing glasses. The bigger news might be the inclusion of an optio...